Gluten-Free Carrot Cake with Coconut Frosting

It was my daughter's first birthday and we made two gluten-free carrot cakes. One was also dairy free and had coconut frosting. The other had cream cheese frosting. They turned out pretty good. I even fooled my little brother into thinking they were regular cakes. I used this recipe from Karina's Kitchen. We have also tried this one in the past from Allrecipes and just substituted a GF flour mix. I remember liking the Allrecipes one better, but I also used Pamala's baking mix in that one, which I don't use anymore because it has buttermilk. I decided to try letting my kids have the small amount of eggs they would get in the cake. Abbie was fine with it. Barrett didn't seem to handle it very well althoughI still suspect that buckwheat might bother him.

Here is the recipe as I made it. This is the doubled version.

6 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 crushed pineapple or applesauce
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp Allspice
4 cups flour mix with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda added per cup of flour*
1 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut (I left this out--you can also put in raisins or nuts)
3 cups processed [or finely grated] carrots (about 4 medium carrots)

*I used 1/3 c tapioca starch, 2/3 c potato starch, 4 tsp guar gum, 1/2 c buckwheat flour, 1/2 c coconut flour, 1/2 c brown rice flour, 1/2 c Bob's all purpose baking mix, 1/2 c sweet rice flour, 1/2 c potoato flour---I think I could have done with only 1/2 cup starch total and put in another 1/2 c of flour instead.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray two 9" square pans with cooking oil and sprinkle with sweet rice flour (mochiko). Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. Beat eggs in a large bowl. Add oil and brown sugar. Mix. Add applesauce or pineapple. Mix. Slowly beat in dry mixture. Add carrot. Batter will be fairly thick. Spread batter into pans. Bake for 40 minutes (I am high altititude). Turn over onto wire racks and let cool.

Coconut Frosting.

I sort of guessed on this. I mixed coconut milk with powdered sugar and vanilla until I had a good consistency. I think it would have been better with almond extract instead of vanilla but I ran out. The coconut is a little strong or bitter or something so you might want to use just a little coconut milk and then use rice milk or water if it needs more liquid.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 8oz pkg softened cream cheese
powdered sugar
vanilla

Blend them all together to desired consistency and sweetness. I know it's not very helpful instruction, but I didn't measure so that's all you get.